SIX friends who set up a free legal advice service for Ukrainian refugees seeking safety in Britain amid a woeful lack of government support have now helped 1,400 people. 

The Ukrainian Advice Project UK was launched on February 28 in the wake of Russia’s invasion to give pro bono legal advice to Ukrainians left in the lurch by the Home Office’s chaotic and slow response to the crisis. 

Since then the project — now just three weeks old — has helped more than 1,400 Ukrainian refugees and registered 670 volunteer lawyers, including 430 immigration specialists. 

Barrister Jennifer Blair, one of the project’s six founders, told the Morning Star they decided to set up the service after noticing an urgent need for advice. 

Along with fellow lawyers Miranda Butler, Simon Cox, Alex Piletska, John Vassiliou and Free Movement blog editor CJ McKinney, she quickly set up a website and email address. 

“We thought we would get a few enquiries and respond to them … but immediately we had a huge number, and we needed to get volunteers,” Ms Blair said. 

At one point, Ms Blair said they were receiving requests for help every minute.

The co-ordinators worked flat out, seven days a week, juggling their day jobs with the project, until law firm DLA Piper offered to take over the project’s admin last week.  

They now receive an average of around 200 requests a day, she says, which they match up with volunteer lawyers for free advice. 

The project has seen first hand the problems faced by Ukrainians refugees trying to navigate Britain’s chaotic visa system. 

“We’ve been really impressed with the legal profession’s response, it’s been amazing,” she said.

“But it’s just felt like people are battling again and again with the same bureaucratic hurdles that are just not appropriate in responding to a war zone.”

Although visa restrictions for Ukrainians with family ties have since been eased by the government, Ms Blair says the project continues to see people falling through the gaps. 

One such request was from a disabled woman whose carer and sister-in-law was eligible to come to Britain under the family visa but she wasn’t. “So she thought: do I have to stay behind on my own? I can’t walk.”

The visa application process has also been moved online following anger at Ukrainian refugees being forced to travel miles to visa application centres. 

But Ms Blair says the online system is also likely to prove problematic. 

“You’re going to need to have a smart phone, you’re going to need the internet. We’re getting enquiries from loads of elderly people who are not going to be in a position to do it,” she said. 

“It’s a scheme that’s particularly unsuitable for the demographic of people who need to use it, because people fleeing conflict won’t always have all their documents, and a lot of them are elderly and a lot of them are children without the kind of documents needed to show.”

The barrister says that rather than insisting on Ukrainians refugees applying for visas, the Home Office should have simply removed Ukraine from the list of countries that require visas to enter Britain, and carried out security checks on arrival. 

“The project shouldn’t have been necessary,” she added. “If [the government] had responded in a more practical and accessible way we wouldn’t have been needed.”